jbwelda

I am actually planning on visiting flagstaff in may. I understand it is much nicer there at elevation. the couple of families I know in phoenix are Hispanic. they own a place down on a lake that straddles the border and cant hardly visit there...THEIR OWN LAND...without having to deal with a bunch of self-styled federales not to mention the real ones. but they just laugh and deal wid it. its probably not nearly the trouble I have had on the other side, but there they wanted your money. back to the subject, ahem, one thing I would do that is reflected in another thread here currently is be selective about how you store the kits. some boxes are inherently crummy, some boxes are over filled, so try to alleviate those problems. especially make sure the bodies are up on top and being crushed by whatever could be stacked on them...that's a sure way to get warpage especially if heat is applied. those crummy pizza box style boxes I would try to pack together into larger boxes or at least try not to get a bunch of weight on them. put the solid stuff on the bottom and the light stuff on the top, that sort of thing. and one thing I would definitely do is go to your storage on the first fairly hot day like mid 90s and check inside to see how hot it is getting...if its boiling in there I would do something sooner than later. good luck in aridzona, its beautiful country around there. jb

now correct me if I am wrong but I am under the impression that the heat in Phoenix is not necessarily dry heat. aren't there huge thunderheads that appear and drench the place during periods of at least high 90s, causing flash floods and making the humidity go through the roof? and then it dries out and a day later its back to its normal balmy 117? and Lord help you if you look even slightly Hispanic? jb

at a minimum keep air circulation going like with a fan on low during the hot months. from what I understand that might be a majority of months and those dust monster things... if you have a real significant investment there you might look for some climate controlled storage. I know I would. jb

I don't even get this poll: there are two choices except there are three choices and the third choice is the runaway winner pretty much however you look at it. you should work for USA Today! jb

that mooneyes dragster shown above is a contemporary recreation not the original nor even frame layout original though it does look close. jb

I built the original when I was a kid and also hate that red plastic, which I had forgotten about until I read the above. I also bought the blueprinter version when it came out but never really delved into it, figured it was exactly like the original. but not? I did know it was in the more manageable grey plastic. then I bought the boxed version when it came out, just because, plus it came with extra parts and was in white plastic and that tin just looks totally kool. I also bought selected roth reissues in their tins too...really did not cost much if anything over what the box versions cost, and I think those look great lining the walls. in fact I am kind of surprised at the reaction above from a bunch of people who drool over box art. the DD tin box issue in particular I thought was a bargain and here you have a permanent piece of box art that you can keep spare parts or whatever in. you don't have to "collect" junk to enjoy it...you can use it! jb

thats the first thing i thought when i saw that photo: what a photoshopped (poorly) piece of BS. now maybe it was from some fantasy boxart thing but otherwise that aint no legit photo. but let me guess: something to do with the date that day... jb

interesting video on the Allison engine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8JdhX8WHG8 edit to add: heres another kool klip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNgXxWRTOWY jb

>Most automobiles of this era had folding windshields--the upper part being hinged at the frame, so as to be folded forward, >down on top of the lower pane. There are lots of contemporary pictures of open cars (and the VAST majority of automobiles >prior to the advent of inexpensive closed body styles were open bodies) showing this. ok Art thanks for the info though in all honesty that's not at all what I asked, and its probably a case of not reading my post very carefully. I am well aware of windshields in which the upper part is hinged and folds forward and down...onto the VERTICAL piece of glass below. you might note I emphasized the word "vertical". you might also note the lower glass in the photo above as well as the box art is not vertical. you might also note some other disparities from what I, at least, thought I "knew" about these windshields (in my case very little). thanks again! jb

is this basically the same as the Texaco station offered a few years ago? must be, sure looks like it is. I got one on the shelf but never managed to arse myself into looking at it seriously. tabletop acreage is a problem too...but sure would be kool. ps: always check Amazon, its amazing what you can get through them and generally for like half what it costs everywhere else, just like Chad says. jb

I have never had the Tamiya clear crack up over any other paint, but I generally let my bodies dry out for a good while, like at least a week, and that's in relatively dry California, before I clear coat them. and even then I generally color sand at least the big flat areas and I think that might help too. so I suppose if you don't let the color gas out before applying your clear you might have a problem. TS13 is no longer available in the USA? wow, that's kinda painful. I wonder if its "forever" or just being "reformulated" like the primer was? jb

Yep, that's where "depth" comes from right there to echo another thread. and to me the miracle is in the last step 12,000 grit. it goes from kinda foggy and sort of like you just ruined your paint job to ... WOW!!! then you put on some wax or plastic shiner stuff (I use some ancient Mequires plastic formula stuff) and you got just what you got there...some real DEPTH! nice job. jb

ya know, good old dishwashing soap is formulated to remove grease and oil. I have found that it works great: soak the body in a solution and then sponge or maybe toothbrush the crevices, dry and paint. works even better if you got a cheap ultrasound cleaner like from harbor freight or amazon.com jb

I just tonite used #2 Novus to polish out the paint on a Mysterion I am restoring, and while it was Tamiya paint I was polishing I was surprised at how quickly those high spots started to look bare! I generally use a polishing kit of abrasive cloth but just thought this might be a little gentler on the yellow paint, but looks like you have to be careful. I didn't ruin it (yet...but im planning on staying up a few hours more tonite), but came close. jb

paint it...its not gonna hurt it. I have done it anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 days after original coat and no worries. its Tamiya man...that's what ya pay the big bucks for! jb

well this one (three) is about done except for me remaking the cowl which is underway so next stop is under glass, meanwhile heres some fuzztone fotos for fun: thanks for following along! jb

dude...you should have bought the cabriolet or speedster model and saved yourself a lot of time and grief. can't wait till you get to the motor, its a beaut! jb

about the bongos, see second or so page of thread because they were already mentioned. I just saw this on ebay, is it the chrome sprue shown above but with more trophies? anyone know where that sprue comes from? now at the top of page 4 or so is a big collection of trophies. one in particular is very rare, intricate and sought after. it is in the upper left corner of the photo I reproduced here. unfortunately the part(s) shown there are only about half of the show, there are at least 6 very delicate angel figures and one large trophy cup with a larger angel figure on top of it. this was from the Uncertain T and I have been looking for parts for it for a long time...I have whats shown in the pic, but in resin, but the resin angels were too flash to even use, broke every one of them trying to clean them up. anyway who evers photo that was ought to look around for the rest of it cause it will be worth money if it was complete...I would probably be prepared to offer 50$ but I would also probably be outbid handily for it on ebay at that price. jb

hey frank, this looks really great, like back to my childhood, though of course with one one thousandth the skill back then! one thing if I could, and maybe you were going to do this anyhow, but you might think about tacking all the body parts onto the car with masking tape, leave them loose so your lines wont fill in, and then give the entire body one or two easy kind of coats, followed by a final color coat just to the edge of running. don't touch it, leave the area. seriously. preferably do it in a warm room like a small bathroom with a heater. then come back to it in an hour and it will all be even color and ready to dry and get a final polish. it will look way better than the real thing ever did! hope that helps jb

hey Austin thanks for that tip! seems like they are racing through the streets of long beach just next weekend (too short of notice for me unfortunately) and that should be WILDER than wild! then again in October down in LA which is on a proper track, not as exciting as through the streets I think. this is Formula Drift Pro Championship series http://formulad.com/schedule/pro-championship/ gonna have to check into this a bit more and see if I can come with something up norte. thanks again! jb

the more I look at that picture the more stuff I see. for instance whats with that windshield? I don't think I have ever seen anything like that what with the lower section being angled up to the vertical upper section! maybe that's all because of the lack of cowl? and it looks to be fixed in place or maybe the top section folds down onto the lower section? be interesting to see whether the mold incorporates all those details or if it will just be simplified. jb

the thing about that "OK" logo is that if the artist just obscured that third finger sticking up, and moved the first finger sticking up to the left just a little bit...it would very much resemble the Playboy bunny logo. maybe its like that to avoid just such a conflict. I got the first kit but not sure I will get this one as my current building tendencies are more with older cars than bang up to the moment stuff like this, but they sure got some interesting design concepts. though it looks almost traditional in its layout, that RX7 just kills me. prime example of hot rod spirit alive in the modern generation (albeit in a different country). anyone know of organized races of this sort of car (or even street races, PM me) in northern California? I would love to see them go round sears point or laguna seca (note old skool names). jb

Reversed the rear wheels? Don't know what you mean...but yes they could use some lug nuts, though I think the original might have just had one big nut in the center. edit: just checked my ref pics and sure enough, 5 lugs per wheel. I have some resin lug nuts around, looks like they need to go deh. btw the wheels came from the tony nancy 22jr kit...they looked close to the pics I have so I used em. edit #2: now that I think about it I believe I sourced the wheels from a revell double car kit, the fumin fiat and thunder charger, so they quite might be exactly the same included in the similar mooneyes dragster double kit. jb

thanks steve; on the cowl, if this one doesn't work out, I was thinking of forming it from aluminum or, now that you bring it up, brass. but looks to me like this cowl will fit and other than those nasty sink marks that I need to fill smooth, is coming along pretty nicely. my next big challenge is making the drag link as the one I had, from revell parts pack, is too short to reach the front axle and too short to hang down beneath the header on that side. its always something! jb

slowly rocking on: in other news, decided I could not live with the fit of the cowl to the lower body pieces, which was the straw that broke the camels back on redoing it because it could also use to be moved forward a smidgen (approx. 1/32" or so) and also I used the original "vintage" decals on the cowl and they are yellowed and not optimum and meanwhile I sourced some perfect repros I can use on the V2 cowl. another factor is evidently Dean Moon did not like the mooneyes logo reversed and insisted on only the left looking eyes were proper. and indeed in photos I have of the original the eyes on either side of the cowl are facing the same direction...that means on the left side they face forward but on the right side they face backward. Revell's original decal sheet is incorrect though most of us would prefer the look of symmetrical facing logo on each side. but the new decal sheet has 10 (!) sets of the decals so theres more than enuff for this. so a new cowl is currently being constructed from a junk/parted Attempt 1 kit I have which has the same frame and cowl panels. as you can see i have added about 1/32" to the width which fits both sides perfectly, should be a worthwhile project and actually the original doesnt fit that bad if you split the difference, but what with the other stuff its worth it to redo. anyhoo heres a couple pics of what I mean...poor fit and new vs old...oh yeah and that lip I added to both is to make a proper overhang over the instrument panel: the stock piece is too short to even span the space between the firewall and the inst panel. on this one though I am cutting it back a bit from previously, that combined with the planned forward movement ought to make the overhang appear about right on to the photos I have. thanks again for looking, comments criticisms suggestions always cheerfully considered! jb